


Puzzling Together

by tosca1390



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dad, where’s Mom?” she asked after a long moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puzzling Together

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for _Ellie_. Written for West Wing Secret Santa at LiveJournal.

*

The staff didn’t linger in the screening room. Charlie stayed just for a moment, but Ellie could see the impatience in his stance; she could only assume Zoey was waiting for him. When her father released him for the night, he looked relieved.

She wished she could feel the same. Now, it was just her father and her.

And all the Secret Service, of course.

His hands landed on her shoulders, warm and wide. “Are you tired?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Good. Let’s go to the mess,” he said, sounding very pleased as they exited the screening room. “I bet we can even find something down there to satisfy your picky appetite. When you were twelve, all you would eat is white food. Potatoes, rolls, chicken, cauliflower—I was almost certain Mom would smother you in your sleep.”

“I’m not twelve anymore,” Ellie murmured as he steered her through the corridors. Her breath still caught whenever she came through the West Wing. Zoey always said it wasn’t a big deal, to be there; Ellie still thought it was exciting, to see the places and the rooms where all the great (and not-so-great) thoughts turned into policy into law.

“Don’t remind me,” her dad grumbled, walking briskly at her side.

“Dad—“

“How about some ice cream?”

She sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Yeah. Okay.”

He glanced aside at her, face unreadable. “We can talk.”

She wondered, after the experience in the Oval Office earlier, if that was such a good idea. Their conversations were usually either stilted or explosive, and even the détente and the teasing during the movie may not deflect that. “Sure, Dad.”

They didn’t speak again until they were seated in the empty, cool mess hall. Secret Service agents were stationed at the doorways. With a large bowl of vanilla in front of her, and mint chocolate chip in front of her dad, it was very surreal; it was like being at home in Manchester, except most definitely not.

“So. What’s new?” he asked after a moment, a shock of hair falling across his brow. “Other than chatting with Danny Concannon, that is.”

She toyed with her spoon, flushing. “Dad—“

“I’m just kidding. It’s okay,” he said firmly.

Taking a breath, she took a large bite of the softening ice cream. They looked at each other from across the table for a moment, until she just felt too tired to keep up with him.

“So. What’d you do today?”

The spoon was too cold against her teeth. “Studied for my exam on STDs for my virus and disease course. Reviewed notes for oncology,” she said.

“Where?” he asked through a spoonful of ice cream.

She curled her fingers tightly around the spoon’s handle. “Mom’s office. She’s not here, so…”

Her father tensed before her eyes, mouth drawn into hard lines. “That’s good, then.”

Watching him quietly as they ate, she thought back to recent conversations with her mother; the State of the Union, which she had watched at her apartment with Chinese take-out and Rob (who she still had to tell her father about, jesus); her mother’s glaring absence. It was all puzzling together into something unsettling; if there had been one constant in her life, it had been her mother and father. Even when they were angry, they were together.

“Dad, where’s Mom?” she asked after a long moment.

He looked at her carefully, swallowing another spoonful of ice cream. “Manchester.”

She took a steadying breath, keeping her chin up; she could still hear his words, harsh and reverberating in the most powerful office in the world. “Is she really coming back tomorrow?”

He set his spoon down, fixing her with an even stare. “Why wouldn’t she?”

Nervously she drummed the fingers of her free hand on her thigh. “School uniforms, Dad?”

His face didn’t change, but there was a new glint to his eyes, unfamiliar under the warm light of the mess. “I shouldn’t have sold you short today, Ellie. Maybe you’re more of a politico than I thought,” he said evenly.

She bristled, preparing for the worst. She thought it had been bad in the Oval Office, and when she picked Boston College over Notre Dame, but now—

But he only shook his head, leaning over his bowl. “We’ll be all right. Don’t worry over it. You just keep your head with the kids’ feet, or whatever it is you doctors study.”

Sighing quietly, she ate another spoonful of ice cream. “Have you been… okay?” she asked after a spell of quiet, testing the edges of the subject of which their family never spoke.

He appraised her, his brow furrowed. “Yes, honey,” he said quietly. Terms of endearment weren’t their usual fare; she immediately felt something catch in her chest, hard and tugging. “I’m healthy as a horse.”

Blinking hard, she breathed out easily. He wouldn’t lie about that, at least not to her; she knew that she was the only one of the daughters that really asked about it in the first place. “You don’t like horses, Dad,” she said after a moment.

“Don’t let that one get around. It’ll be green beans all over again,” he said cheerfully, a weird cast to his eyes still.

Smiling slightly, she forged through her ice cream with new vigor. She could drop the boyfriend on him tomorrow, at breakfast.

*


End file.
